From Minnie's Ditch To John's Ditching

Main menu

Tag Archives: Jason Blad

Jason Blad, now 33, pleaded guilty more than a decade ago of attempted murder for the attack, perpetrated by himself and another Marine, Jesse Jay Carson. The two were students at the Defense Language Institute at the time of the attack. Carson was convicted at trial of the same charges. Both were sentenced to life in prison.

The two men stabbed the woman 12 times and slashed her throat twice before leaving her for dead on the trail in November 2000. At the trial in Monterey County Superior Court, the victim told jurors she’d pleaded for her life and tried to get away, but the two pinned her to the ground and began stabbing her on each side.

Tuesday, parole board members met at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo for Blad’s latest parole hearing, but denied his bid, according to California Department of Corrections spokesman Luis Patino. He will not be eligible for a parole hearing for another three years.

Marine Lance Cpl. Carson, a Russian-language student at the prestigious Defense Language Institute in Monterey, was arrested March 15 after allegedly admitting that he and Pvt. Jason Blad, 21, were responsible for the November attack that nearly drained the life from a 20-year-old woman on the Pacific Grove Recreation Trail.

Pacific Grove police said shortly after the arrest that the young Marines apparently just wanted to kill someone, anyone, and had their sights on other targets as well. Though authorities say Carson spelled it all out in a journal found near his barracks bunk, details are being kept under wraps by a court-imposed gag order.

“The Jesse Clarke that we know is very talented and is an all-around intelligent and stable person,” said Robin Morris, his former journalism teacher at Richland High School. On a Web site profile of himself, Carson listed Morris as the teacher who has most influenced his life.

Jesse Carson

There are other indications that both defendants had been involved in fantasy games.

A former classmate and friend of Jason Blad’s at Spencerport High School in Spencerport, N.Y., said his schoolmate had often engaged in the games at the time and tried to talk others into joining. That man also spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he did not want to be drawn into the investigation.

“Jason was very big into role-playing games,” he said. “All the time I was friends with him, he tried to get me into that type of scene. Whether it was Dungeons and Dragons or superhero-type games, Jason was always trying to get me to play them with him.

“My parents, knowing all too well what those types of games have led to, told me never to play them and not to get involved with him.”

He said Blad was shy and reclusive, and came from a relatively poor family. Other students would tease him for such things as wearing clothes from the Salvation Army. Eventually, the two boys drifted apart, and Blad started doing “crazy (things) like chasing behind the school bus in the afternoons, screaming like a madman.”

Marines Lance Cpl. Jason Blad, 21, and Jesse Carson, 20, pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of a 20 year old woman on the Pacific Grove Recreation Trail in California on November 11th, 2000. The two men stabbed the woman 12 times and slashed her throat twice before leaving her for dead on the trail.

Pacific Grove police said shortly after the arrest, they found a journal near the barracks bunk of the young Marines and apparently they just wanted to kill someone, anyone, and had their sights on other targets as well. At the trial, the victim told jurors she pleaded for her life and tried to get away but the two pinned her to the ground and began stabbing her on each side.